Sound Home
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I want to get an HD DVD player and have a surround sound home theater w/ wireless speakers. What do I need?
Any tips? Thanks.
I won't comment on your decision re HD DVD other than to suggest you consider it not as an HD DVD player, but as an upscaling DVD player that will play HD DVDs, and that you buy a basic model (e.g the Venture (rebranded Toshiba HD-A3) @ Walmart (US only) for $197 or an actual Toshiba HD-A3 (a bit more, but qualifies for the free disk offer)).
As an aside, I have a Toshiba HD-A2 and use it as an upscaling DVD player for DVDs on my 110" screen HD projection system.
Regarding what you need and hints ... I assume you have an HDTV or other HD display device (e.g. projector). Also, to take advantage of an HD DVD player you will need HDMI (or DVI) connections to your HDTV (and on the A/V receiver if you want to use it for switching).
Depending on the size and the resolution of the HDTV you will get differing degrees of benefit from HD DVD (or Blu-ray). If it is smaller than about 40" or a 720p model improvements to picture sharpness will be minor (relative to a DVD on a good upscaling player). Colour saturation and depth will probably improve somewhat though. On a 40"+ 1080p HDTV improvements will be more significant.
An often overlooked area of difference beteen HD DVD (or Blu-ray) and DVD is in the audio. The more advanced audio formats (which not all disks support however) can give a noticeably improved sound ... but your audio system must be capable of reproducing the sound. Unfortunately, wireless speakers are (usually) less capable than wired speakers so you may not get the full benefit.
The single most significant change you can probably make to ensure maximum benefit from HD DVD disks and HDTV from, for example, HD cable or HD satellite (with your existing equipment) is to ensure optimum viewing distance. Basically this comes down to not sitting so close you see the individual pixels on the screen, but as little further back than that as possible without feeling overwhelmed by the screen. Guidelines vary, but 3-5X screen height or 1.5-2X screen (diagonal) size are useful approximations, with the closer dimension being more appropriate for 1080 HDTVs and the longer being more for 720p screens. These distances will seem short, and may not be acceptable to you given furniture and other room constraints, but they are the point where you will be able to most appreciate both the higher resolution and a movie theatre-like viewing angle (See the article at the link for an explanation and a useful viewing distance calculator).
Hope this helps.
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